Why aren't there more than two or three female artists allowed inside the top tier of country music? While artists like Faith Hill and Martina McBride are allowed to score a periodic chart topping hit, 2008 only found Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Heidi Newfield scoring Top 10 hits as solo artists while Sugarland took a firm grasp of a star slot on the charts and Lady Antebellum scored themselves a hit as well (with a song that featured duet-like vocals).
2009 found Swift, Underwood, Sugarland and Lady Antebellum joined by longtime star Reba McEntire and Kellie Pickler. That's it. Lambert and McBride also managed to get to #11 on the charts but the fact that they couldn't crack the Top 10 is revealing. It's even more revealing when you consider that Swift and Underwood are two of the music world's biggest-selling artists. Lambert has multiple platinum albums to her credit and Sugarland and Lady Antebellum have scored at retail as well.
So, why do female artists have such a hard time scoring radio hits? It could be simple preferences from radio programmers, but in reality it's due to more than that. It's partially radio testing out songs and if one person doesn't like the song, they will not play it. Or the bigger problem, that there is a prevailing thought that country music serves a predominantly female audience and as such, they don't want to hear female artists as much as they want to hear male artists.
Both of these arguments are bullshit to me. Pure bullshit.
Female artists should get the same fair shot as male artists do. They shouldn't have to work twice as hard for success simply because of some old clichéd idea that women want to be serenaded by cute, handsome men or that one or two fans outta 100 don't like a song during testing.
Have these people even looked at the pop charts? The genre is dominated by a female listening audience yet it has a 60% rating of songs that feature female artists in the Top 10 just this Week, to say nothing of this year. Do these women not want to be serenaded by men? Who knows, but at least women are getting a fair shake over there.
So where do we go from here? The answer is simple. Radio should allow women an equal chance. Hell, why not give them even more of a benefit of the doubt. After all, women WILL relate to a woman singing about a relationship or situation that hits home for them, like a "White Liar" or being "Fifteen" and entering high school halls for the first time.
So what if one or two fans don't like a song. Nobody's going to like everything by everyone anyway. So why not plays the latest Whitney Duncan or Emma Jacob single, especially when both have released genuinely hit-worthy singles. The songs are, at the very least, as good as the latest "I'm proud to be a barefoot, crazy truck driver from the backwoods" song.
2009 found Swift, Underwood, Sugarland and Lady Antebellum joined by longtime star Reba McEntire and Kellie Pickler. That's it. Lambert and McBride also managed to get to #11 on the charts but the fact that they couldn't crack the Top 10 is revealing. It's even more revealing when you consider that Swift and Underwood are two of the music world's biggest-selling artists. Lambert has multiple platinum albums to her credit and Sugarland and Lady Antebellum have scored at retail as well.
So, why do female artists have such a hard time scoring radio hits? It could be simple preferences from radio programmers, but in reality it's due to more than that. It's partially radio testing out songs and if one person doesn't like the song, they will not play it. Or the bigger problem, that there is a prevailing thought that country music serves a predominantly female audience and as such, they don't want to hear female artists as much as they want to hear male artists.
Both of these arguments are bullshit to me. Pure bullshit.
Female artists should get the same fair shot as male artists do. They shouldn't have to work twice as hard for success simply because of some old clichéd idea that women want to be serenaded by cute, handsome men or that one or two fans outta 100 don't like a song during testing.
Have these people even looked at the pop charts? The genre is dominated by a female listening audience yet it has a 60% rating of songs that feature female artists in the Top 10 just this Week, to say nothing of this year. Do these women not want to be serenaded by men? Who knows, but at least women are getting a fair shake over there.
So where do we go from here? The answer is simple. Radio should allow women an equal chance. Hell, why not give them even more of a benefit of the doubt. After all, women WILL relate to a woman singing about a relationship or situation that hits home for them, like a "White Liar" or being "Fifteen" and entering high school halls for the first time.
So what if one or two fans don't like a song. Nobody's going to like everything by everyone anyway. So why not plays the latest Whitney Duncan or Emma Jacob single, especially when both have released genuinely hit-worthy singles. The songs are, at the very least, as good as the latest "I'm proud to be a barefoot, crazy truck driver from the backwoods" song.
Amy SciarrettoRight now I'm reading a lot about music. It almost sounds oxymoronic. To read about music, when music is what you listen to. But music, like many of the arts, is something that touches all of your senses. Now, I am not going to muse on the Kindle, and how it is going ruin literature and the literary process of digesting reading materials. I do love the bookshelves that runs width wise under my low windows of my cond Read More ...
Adam BernardWelcome to your weekly dose of pop world musings. Covering all things pop culture, this week Pop Shots is hitting you with thoughts on everything from Dancing With The Stars finding so Read More ...
William DeshairI wanted to set the table with this edition of "R.eal A.nd P.ersonal" for columns to come on the subject of the Female Emcee. As time goes on, I will slowly phase out that title and hope that you will do the same. Because face it, calling a woman that raps, a female emcee, is like calling an African-American that plays the position of quarterback, a black quarterback. Ability should be sexless. We must change how we Read More ...
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